Longhorns Insider: Optimism can only go so far for Barnes

Updated 12:05 am, Wednesday, March 13, 2013

UT coach Rick Barnes says his sub.-500 team can win four games at the Big 12 tourney, starting tonight, and earn an NCAA berth.

UT coach Rick Barnes says his sub.-500 team can win four games at the Big 12 tourney, starting tonight, and earn an NCAA berth.

Photo: Eric Gay / Associated Press

Longhorns Insider: Optimism can only go so far for Barnes

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AUSTIN — Midway through last December, Rick Barnes pulled into an Erwin Center parking lot and flagged down a reporter. A few days earlier, his Texas men's basketball team had looked unimpressive and disorganized in an ugly loss, but Barnes appeared surprisingly upbeat.

When the reporter asked him what he had to feel so great about, the coach smiled.

“Well,” Barnes said, “we might just win the Big 12.”

If Barnes can be given credit for anything during what's turned into an unrelenting torture chamber of a season, it's that he's somehow managed to endure it without losing his sense of optimism.

After UT lost its first five conference games, Barnes brought up the 2011 Connecticut Huskies, who overcame early struggles to win a national title. After the Longhorns rallied from a 22-point deficit to beat Oklahoma two weeks ago, Barnes proclaimed, “I don't think there's a team in the country that wants to play Texas.”

The Longhorns were 13-15 at the time. If anyone didn't want to play Texas, it probably was because they worried they'd have to do so in the prestigious College Basketball Invitational.

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Today in Kansas City, Mo., Barnes will coach the seventh-seeded Longhorns (15-16) in the Big 12 tournament for the 15th time. But unless his players finally start living up to his grandiose descriptions of them, it will be the first time he'll see a season end there.

After a school-record 14 consecutive trips to the NCAA tournament, UT won't receive an at-large bid this year. Its only hope is to win four games in a row at the Sprint Center, beginning tonight against last-place TCU.

And as usual, Barnes refuses to rule out the possibility that most rational minds consider crazy.

“I think we can get on a roll and win a bunch of games,” Barnes said. “I do think our players have a mindset that we can do that.”

The problem is there's little evidence to support such a mindset. The Longhorns haven't won four games in a row all season and finished the regular season with their first back-to-back victories since December.

To their credit, they have played better since the return of point guard Myck Kabongo, who missed the season's first 23 games while serving an NCAA suspension. With Kabongo, the Longhorns are 5-3, including victories over Baylor and Texas Tech last week.

But while Kabongo has looked every bit the part of a potential NBA first-round draft pick while playing at home (shooting 57 percent while averaging 18.8 points and 7.0 assists), his performances away from the Erwin Center have been abysmal (shooting 29 percent while averaging 12.8 points and 3.5 assists).

Kabongo will need to change that trend if UT has any hope of making it past the second round this week, much less win Saturday's championship game. If the Longhorns survive against the Horned Frogs tonight, they'd be pitted in the second round against Kansas State, which rolled UT twice in the regular season.

Still, just like in the parking lot three months ago, Barnes sees the potential for a breakthrough. And now, the situation is even clearer than it was then.

“We know what's there,” Barnes said. “We've got to not just win one game. We've got to win the tournament.”